The Mug Tree
by dorian dark
Summary: It's the only difference between them - George drinks tea, Fred doesn't. George goes through a lot of cups before the wounds begin to heal. George/Angelina, with snippets of H/G, Hr/R, P/A and C/O.


_This is for my sisters, who are twins and have never forgiven me for being more upset about Lupin's death than Fred's._

* * *

It's the only difference between them. Fred frowns every morning when he stumbles, a shocking pink dressing gown clashing horribly with his hair, into the cramped kitchen behind the shop. The kettle is bubbling to a climax, beginning to whistle, and George is pottering about, his hair on end, munching a piece of toast. It's always the same. Fred glares balefully as his twin warms a squat steel teapot and lovingly douses his teabag of choice with boiling water. George won't even open an envelope without magic, and here he is, every morning, making tea the Muggle way.

'Sure I can't tempt you?' he asks every morning, brandishing the pot at Fred.

Fred scowls and fetches the pumpkin juice from the fridge.

It's the only difference, they tell themselves – whenever people ask (as they do, right after 'can you feel it when the other one hurts?' and 'do you finish each other's sentences?') 'how do your friends tell you apart?', they answer, 'they don't, unless George is drinking tea.'

George thinks about it, sometimes, straining tea-leaves with a silver spoon, how Fred doesn't need hot beverages – he's the fiery one, the one with a blazing temper and a blazing wit and a mouth that runs away with him day in, day out. George, if he's being picky, is the cool one, reserved, maybe, finishing his brother's punchlines, causing a diversion. The other side. The second twin. The plus-one. He doesn't mind. He makes a big deal of buying different sorts of tea, collecting mugs, hanging them carefully on the mug tree Bill made for him one year, just to reassure himself that he exists as a unique entity.

*

'You'd be okay, wouldn't you?' he asks Fred suddenly, one morning, sitting in the shop office, accounts spread out across the table. 'If something…I mean…if I…'

Fred stares, and George realises his brother has genuinely never realised that, even if they survive this war, even if they live into dotage, one will die before the other. Fred says, shakily, 'don't say things like that, mate. Got a huge shipment of Snaggling Skipping Ropes coming in from Krakow, can't have you being all morbid when I need your amazing Polish skills…'

He's babbling, and trembling so badly the tea in George's mug sloshes over the edge.

They don't talk about it again, even after George's ear is cleaved away.

*

Surprisingly, George's first visitor, when he's still getting used to the shadow beside him, the hole inside him, is the Minister of Magic.

'Don't mind if I come in, do you, George?' Kingsley asks, and George realises noone will ever hesitate, wondering which twin he is, again.

He searches frantically for a mug that isn't chipped or bearing some pornographic slogan, and resorts to the fine bone-china teaset his mother gave them 'for best', and it looks faintly ridiculous, all flowers and kittens and gold-leaf lip clutched in Kingsley's massive hands.

'I've brought your brother's Order of Merlin over,' the Minister says, reaching into his robes and pulling out a small black box. 'They…posthumous awards…they usually go to the next of kin…the mother, the wife, you understand. I thought…I thought this would be more appropriate.'

George opens the box and examines the small medal, and Fred's name, _Fred Weasley, _unusually short, as though something's been erased from the middle. He's seen that name engraved in neat italics too often – on gravestones and memorials and plaques, as though Fred is the permanent one, and George has faded away.

He sits with the Minister of Magic, in his drab little kitchen, and they toast his twin with cups of steaming Assam, and George tucks the box away, away, and continues stock-taking.

*

He finds the battered box at the back of the cupboard, sniffs a teabag experimentally, and flings it in ill-disguised disgust into a mug.

'Smells rank, sis, I have to say,' he says. 'Don't know about helping with nausea…that'd be enough to _make _me sick.'

Fleur giggles and examines the mug of camomile and ginger. George realises too late he's given her the one with the two cartoon owls on it.

'What eez a pair of 'ooters?' she asks genially.

'Um.'

He's not entirely sure why she's here – they've never spent much time together, and he's nothing if not uncomfortable around a heavily pregnant Veela – he suspects either Bill or his mother (or both) may be involved somehow.

'So…baby alright, then?' he asks hopelessly.

'_Oui,' _she says slowly. 'We were 'oping…Bill an' I…eet would be ver' sweet if you would…uh…I theenk they call eet a godfazzer, 'ere?'

She's beautiful, in the calm glow of the afternoon, a pale blue shawl draped around her shoulders, and George knows, now, what they mean when they talk of pregnant women _glowing_. Her uncertainty and kind smile bring tears unexpectedly to his eyes, and he busies himself tidying away some plates left on the draining board.

A baby – a screaming, writhing mass of flesh, probably smelly and inconvenient – petulant, attention-seeking, wholly loved despite its flaws – Fred would laugh if he could see Fleur try, earnestly and desperately, to replace the hole in his twin's life with such an entity. A baby. Innocent, and completely dependent, grizzling aimlessly, or sleeping calmly, perfectly. George can't think of anything less like his brother.

And then he thinks of babies, laughing uproariously, unreservedly, at little things, mad dogs, funny faces, seesaws, and can't think of anything more like Fred.

*

For once, he uses a charm to hurry the kettle up, because Merlin knows Percy won't thank him if he's late back from his lunch break. The fragrant Earl Grey steam dribbles through the flat and mists Percy's glasses.

'So…I suppose Mum sent you, then, Perce? Check up on old Georgie? Make sure he isn't going insane with noone to talk to?'

It comes out harshly, and he pretends he doesn't see the momentary hurt in his brother's eyes.

'No, I…well, actually,' Percy says, lapsing back into his pompous prefect voice, 'I rather wanted your advice, but if you're going to be all…defensive like that…'

George splutters on his tea. 'Advice?! From _me_? Finally come to your senses, brother dear? Pulling a sickie? I always knew you'd realise the Power of the Pastille eventually…'

'I've met someone,' Percy blurts out, and George gasps, despite himself.

'You…you…Perce…I mean…_Merlin_…Perce, honestly, you know you've come to the wrong place. I'm not the one who's good with girls.'

What he means is: Percy's two years too late. Two years ago, Fred would have been perched on the draining board, scowling at their tea party, rattling off anecdotes about randy Ravenclaws and horny Hufflepuffs and making Percy blush to the tips of his hair.

'George, I don't need your help asking her out, for Merlin's sake!' Percy says, sipping composedly from his mug (an Egypt souvenir with a panorama of pyramids) 'In case it's escaped your notice, I am, in fact, an adult, and besides…she asked _me _out. No…well…it's just…I can't really take her home…really…'

George feels the old mischief rumble in his chest. 'Percy Ignatius Weasley! What _have _you done? Got the wench up the duff? Is she foreign? Is she older than you? Is she –' Fred gulps dramatically '- a _Malfoy_?'

'She's a Muggle, George.'

George stares.

'Oh, _bollocks, _Perce,' he says emphatically. 'Dad's going to be bloody unbearable.'

Percy laughs quietly. 'I know. The poor girl. She doesn't know what she's let herself in for.'

Evening falls, and Verity comes stamping up the stairs to inform him that they've a queue as long as a Basilisk and would he possibly mind coming to sell things in his own shop, and Percy sticks two fingers up to his job for the day and drinks his brother out of milk as they talk the day away.

*

'Coach has got me on it, said I was getting addicted to caffeine,' Oliver says apologetically, wrinkling his nose at the murky Rooibos. 'Foul, I tell you, Weasley. Nice mug, by the way,' he adds, tipping the navy Puddlemere vessel at George.

'So…how've you been, then, Wood? Saw that save against the Wasps – took me back, I tell you. Remember that one against Slytherin? Never seen anything like it…'

Oliver hasn't changed – the same gauche walk, as though his arms and legs are bigger, longer, stronger than he bargained for, the same slow smile and manic look.

'Brilliant, mate!' he says. 'Got a new contract, would you believe? That's sort of why I popped in today…not gonna be in the country that much next year.'

'_International_ Quidditch, Oliver Wood?' George asks.

'Dinamo Bucaresti. Three-year deal, _and _the latest Rocket Elite. Couldn't make it up, I swear.'

Oliver's always been a bit of a loner, flitting smoothly around the goal posts, his team barrelling up the field away from him, sitting apart from his year in the common room with his plays and his diagrams, leaping from team to team without a backward glance. George…he's not played Quidditch since leaving Hogwarts. He doesn't think he could, somehow – he'd always be looking for the speck on the other side of the pitch, always expecting that someone with a hefty right-swing would be there to balance out the slight weakness in his backhander. Fred's bat is still upstairs, nestled in its case next to its twin, and George hates it, _envies _a piece of scratched wood, because it's not lonely.

They talk about Quidditch, and the heyday, the rush of winning the cup, and reminisce about every player on that glorious team. Except that there are seven people on a team, and they ignore one, push aside his jokes and falls and cheating and outrages, in case the world breaks.

*

George watches his younger brother shovel four teaspoons of sugar into his Playwitch mug, shaking his head in mock despair.

'What _would_ the Grangers say if they could see you?' he tuts amusedly.

'Well, their damn-fool daughter has already forced me to drink this muck,' Ron grumbles into his green tea, 'so they'd better be bloody happy with that. I'll have as much sugar as I damn well please…stuff tastes _foul_.'

They sit in silence for a minute, the jangle of Ron's stirring the only sound, until George can stand it no longer.

'Ronald, you'd better bloody show me it right this minute, or I swear to God I'm going to do something drastic!'

Ron has not changed in the five years since the war. He still splutters in a most undignified manner – 'How the…I…how on _earth _did you know?'

George smiles smugly, and feels the ghost beside him do the same. 'Written all over your face, little brother. Saw you at Ginny's wedding, you looked constipated or something, wondering what you'd look like up there with a big goofy grin on your face, making a speech…and you've looked like you've got a price on your head for months now. And you've got a very conveniently box-shaped bulge in your pocket, as well. That helped.'

Ron scowls, and pulls out a small box, snapping it open irritably and flashing a magnificent diamond at George.

'Whew! Well, _I _wouldn't turn you down if you threw that at me…'

'Well, luckily, noone's asking you, are they?' Ron asks sweetly. His face falls quickly, and he whispers, 'but, seriously, George, what the hell am I meant to say? I've been practising…you know…and it just…it just sounds _so stupid_, however I say it. It's just so…corny.'

George laughs. 'Listen, mate, if she wanted eloquent and dashing, she'd have gone for…I don't know…Davies, or someone.' He swallows painfully, acutely conscious that his first thought had been Fred, Fred with his wit and verve and easy, smooth wooing. 'But she – despite being one of the most intelligent witches in the country – chose you, and I'm sure you'll bluster and fumble your way through the thing quite admirably.'

Ron grins, and punches him lightly on the arm.

When he leaves, George watches him head down Diagon Alley with a spring in his step, and wallows in loneliness and silence. The weddings, the courtships, the little beginnings and cheap, cheerful homes – he's seen his siblings run into loving arms, and start lives with bright, hopeful faces, and he is stagnant, crystallised in this shop, a relic from before the war, a brash, lurid reminder of the past. He likes Audrey well enough, her quaint ways and secretive giggle, and he's always known, really, from the early years of their friendship, that Ron and Hermione would end up together. And he remembers two tall, muscled figures vanishing into the dark at the end of the garden at Ginny's wedding, and knows, with a feeling of dreadful finality, exactly why Oliver Wood is transferring to a Romanian team next season.

He's taken Verity out a few times, and stumbled breathlessly through the darkened shop with her hands fluttering inside his robes once, and felt the hollow, the void swirling around him widen. Now, he avoids the hipper, younger bars, with their sleek-haired bargirls and flirty waitresses, in case he feels the gap heal over. It's funny, how he's grown accustomed to the space at his side, the odd feeling of imbalance when anyone says his name. He's tipping over, and there's only a hole, an _absence_ beside him to hold him up.

He doesn't need NEWTs to tell him it's not enough.

*

The first time Angelina comes into Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, she's drenched from an impromptu shower, and she smiles gratefully at him through a smoky haze of Lapsang Souchong, and tells him about Katie Bell and Marcus Flint, and giggles at his look of horror.

He hasn't seen her since the battle, and remembers her long braids whipping through the air, her mouth a snarl of righteousness. He remembers faces from that day too well, too well. Colin Creevey's gaping fear, Neville's defiant glare, his father's crumbled, distraught shudder. And Fred. Almost a smile – almost alive. He dreads to think what his own looked like, and suspects the ghost of that day – whatever tragedy, anger and fear flitted across his features – masks him still.

Six years, and all they have to talk about is childhood, and how it ran away, and how they laughed.

'Remember Fred trying to mop up all that puke with Lee's Potions notes?' Angelina says, her breath hitching a little as she stumbles on a dead boy's name, and George remembers Lee's indignant squeals and Fred's face, caught halfway between laughing and panicking, and laughs, just a little bit, and feels the absence shrink.

The second time Angelina comes into the shop, it's too planned, and George has been thinking too much, and they stare mutely into their tea and Fred hovers, heavy and dark, between them, and neither mentions him.

The third time Angelina calls, two cups of tea sit abandoned on the kitchen table, rippling as George pushes her back onto the table, covers her body with his and breathes, strangled and choking, into the hollow of her collarbone.

'This is weird,' he gasps, and the panic sparks in his eyes and his craw, and he's never felt Fred's loss like this before, here with Angelina's skin vital and pulsing against his, 'this is too weird, Ang…you and Fred,' and it's the first time he's said his name, and something breaks inside him.

'It's not weird, George,' she says, pulling him to her, her mouth close to the gash where his ear once was, a benediction, and the way she says his name sets him free. He is one person, standing alone, without support, without suffixes or prefixes, without qualifications and flipsides, and he begins to move with her, sending the tea sloshing over the edge.

* * *

_Review?_


End file.
